Pianorama – Welte-Mignon

Welcome to a festival featuring piano in the lead role in all concerts. For three days, we will get to hear this instrument solo and together with others. Many of Sweden’s leading pianists will appear, including established musicians and emerging stars, as well as some of Sweden’s most prominent string musicians. Concert pianist Roland Pöntinen is artistic director of Pianorama. 

Here, Pianorama will give the audience a chance to become familiar with the Welte Mignon, an advanced piano roll machine that served as a recording device and registered performances of piano music. In the first few decades of the twentieth century, a vast quantity of recordings were made with the Welte Mignon and at this concert, we will hear recordings of Edvard Grieg, Camille Saint-Saëns, Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Teresa Carreño, among others. Because the performances are reproduced on a “real” instrument, it will be as if these historic figures have been brought back to life.

In conjunction with the concert, we will also learn about the history of the Welte Mignon and other self-playing pianos, and about the piano as a social phenomenon in society from the nineteenth century to today.